The Borough

by Steve Dockray

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  "I just wanted to thank you for your help in getting the budget down to a reasonable level," said the Treasurer. "It was a big relief to me when all the unfortunate members of staff had been interviewed. It would have been very embarrassing if there had been any leaks beforehand."

  Winner sat on the sofa in the Treasurer's office. There was no doubt that Westerman had felt bad about getting rid of staff. It might have been the first time he'd ever had to do it, Winner thought, seeing the fresh lines of ageing and the grey pallor of his skin.

  "Have you decided what to do about the fifty thousand that was stolen?" Winner asked.

  "We'll count that as self-insured and take it out of the insurance fund. It won't leave a very big balance, but what choice have we got?"

  "What about the five hundred thousand that was dropped on the financing transactions?"

  "That's on the capital side, so it doesn't affect the budget. To be honest, I haven't said anything to any of the members yet, although Forbes knows about it. I got the impression he'd just like to bury it on the balance sheet, but the auditors are bound to comment."

  "It's not going to help finance the theatre."

  Westerman got up and walked over to his desk. He returned to the sofa with a copy of the Sharmouth Daily News. "Have you seen this?" he asked.

  The Treasurer pointed to an article on the right hand side of the front page headed 'Council in quicksand over theatre proposals?'. Winner scanned down the column, while Westerman sat quietly. Apparently the newspaper had been shown confidential reports which revealed that the proposed theatre site was soft, in-filled land, the nature of which would mean heavy additional costs for deep piling works. It then launched into an attack on members who wanted the scheme to go ahead, saying that the costs were out of all proportion to what the Borough could afford.

  "I thought the Daily News was in favour of the theatre," said Winner. "Only a week or two ago they were saying what a bonus it would be for the town. Besides, our engineers must be aware of the ground conditions. They would have allowed for that in the estimated cost."

  "Whatever the reason for the change of opinion at the newspaper, I for one shall be rather relieved if it gets postponed or cancelled."

  "You've not been twisting the editor's arm to run this article, have you?" asked Winner, the smile as he spoke covering a genuine suspicion.

  "I wish I could say I had that sort of influence, but there are some people who do. Certain members hold very strong views on this subject, so it wouldn't surprise me if one of them had been in to see the editor. As far as I know there's no substance whatsoever to the suggestion that the land is unsuitable."

  "I've never been able to see how we could finance such a large scheme."

  "It's quite true to say it would always be a difficult project. We would have to rely on a substantial inclusion of offices and retail space, and that would be bound to upset other members."

  Winner thought he would chance another question. "Do you think that's why Councillor Cavendish is so against the theatre? After all, he seems to be quite in favour of the superstore."

  Westerman looked at Winner, hesitating, wondering perhaps whether to unburden himself of his suspicions. "I really can't say. I don't find him an easy man to understand."

  Winner left the office, promising Westerman that he would look into finding the least damaging way to deal with the financing shortfall in the annual accounts. The Treasurer stayed where he was, looking through the window at the traffic passing by. This man Winner seemed to have a feel for what was really going on. Why else would he have mentioned Cavendish, the very man that he, Westerman, was certain was the one to have influenced the newspaper's policy. Things might have gone more smoothly if he had involved Winner earlier.

  Winner hadn't been back in his office long before Sally came in with her own copy of the newspaper.

  "What do you think of this?" she asked, dropping the paper on the desk in front of Winner.

  "Ah, I was just having a chat with Maurice about that. He thinks there may have been a bit of political intervention."

  Sally let the name dropping go by. "Don't you see? I told you I saw John Riggs, the man from the Valleydale building supplies company, coming out of the newspaper offices yesterday. He must have gone there to persuade them to run this article."

  "Why him? That could just have been a coincidence."

  "Because he must be JR. John Riggs."

  "And he placed the article on behalf of Cavendish?"

  "It seems very probable, doesn't it?"

  "We'll be certain if we see this man Riggs going into Cavendish's office on Saturday. You'll be able to point him out to me. Let's have a think about the implications of all this later on this evening. We really shouldn't talk about it too much while we're in the office. You never know who might be listening."

  Sally gave him a conspiratorial wink and went back to her desk. Winner looked out of the window, almost surprised to see that it was still light, despite it being past four thirty. There were three or four seagulls soaring in the sky above the ash tree. Winner wondered what they did all through the cold nights of winter. There was a knock on the open door and Jack Evans walked in.

  "I've got the revised budget sheets," he said, brandishing a sheaf of papers held together with green string tags.

  "Does it all work out as expected?" Winner asked.

  "We're just below the Government guideline figure, so I've reduced the withdrawal from reserve slightly, so that we're spot on. Do you think they'll really manage to stick by these cuts?"

  "The budgets haven't even been seen for the first time by the individual committees, but if any of the members propose new or additional items of expenditure, I'm sure the committee chairmen will have something to say. Forbes made it quite clear to them the other day that if they wanted something new, they would have to cut something else out to compensate. Since they've already been cutting everything they can to avoid redundancies, I don't suppose they'll want to cut any more."

  "What about the theatre?" asked Evans. "We haven't included anything for that."

  "Did you see the paper?"

  "What, about the theatre?"

  "Yes. You know, I think that with the local paper swinging round in favour of postponement or cancellation, Westerman will be a little more confident to be more honest about the difficulties it would cause us."

  "This budget still seems impossibly tight," said Evans.

  "Of course it is. Despite the reduction in staff, we're going to have to do extra work on monitoring expenditure to make sure that nobody is exceeding their budgets. Have you checked these sheets thoroughly?"

  "I've checked all the totalling formulas on the spreadsheets to make sure they include all the appropriate lines. There won't be any more checking to do this year, because we're just going to print the committee reports from a clean copy of the laser printer output. That way there won't be any fresh typesetting or proof-reading."

  "At least we can say the new technology is saving some staff time. We're going to have to make a number of changes to office procedures if we have to manage with fewer staff. Our resources have to be targeted towards providing a service to client departments. We can't be wasting our time on out-dated clerical procedures."

  "You've been reading Audit Commission reports again," Evans accused him.

  "Maybe, but the changes needed here are no different from what's happening in banks, or the Post Office, or any other business with a big clerical workload. There is something else, Jack, while I think of it. Make sure nobody's done footnotes or explanatory text in microscopic type. For one thing the text gets a little bit blurred when it's copied for the members, but also a lot of the members are older than our staff and their eyesight's not so sharp. It was a real farce at the works committee before Christmas. The Engineer got a telling off from the chairman for the four point size type in his report. Mrs Morris said it was harder to read
than the Exchange and Mart. They all had to take turns with Avery's magnifying glass."

  "I'll check it through," Evans promised.

  "You can get it printed, but give a copy to Westerman and wait for a day first. He has an uncanny knack of spotting mistakes that we've missed."